Researchers working on a joint World Agroforestry Centre-United Nations Environment Programme project suggest that massively integrating agroforestry into farming systems would create a vital reservoir for carbon storage. According to estimates by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), at least a billion hectares of developing country farmland are suitable for conversion to carbon agroforestry projects.
According to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), farming offers “a huge potential…to slow climate change. ” By 2030, as much as six gigatonnes (billion metric tons) of CO2 equivalent, or 2 Gt of carbon, could be captured and stored each year, comparable to the current emissions from agriculture.
Working to realize this goal is even more promising and feasible given that many of these “green” agricultural practices can be implemented at little or no cost. Moreover, the majority of this potential – 70 percent – can be realized in developing countries, UNEP points out.
Fertilizer Trees & the Carbon Benefits Project
“If implemented over the next fifty years, agroforestry could result in 50 billion tons of carbon dioxide being removed from the atmosphere, about a third of the world’s total carbon reduction challenge,” Dennis Garrity, director general of the World Agroforestry Centre and co-chair of the Congress Global Organizing Committee, stated in a UNEP news release.
A study completed by World Agroforestry Centre scientists on fertilizer trees that capture nitrogen from the air and transfer it to the soil indicates that their use can reduce the need for commercial nitrogen fertilizers by up to 75 percent while doubling or tripling crop yields. “These results should make agroforestry appealing to farmers,” Garrity noted.
A major hurdle to realizing this goal is the inability to reliably measure, monitor, forecast, and verify the amount of carbon farmers capture and store.
In May 2009, UNEP, the World Agroforestry Centre, and the UN General Environment Facility, which the World Bank manages, launched the Carbon Benefits Project. This partnership, which has received an initial $9.16 million in funding, aims to fill this void by combining the latest remote sensing technology and analysis, soil carbon modeling, ground-based measurements, and statistical analysis.
The University of East Anglia’s Overseas Development Group, Colorado State University, the World Wildlife Foundation (WWF), and Michigan State University are partnering with national organizations in several countries to bring the project to fruition.
Sealing the Deal in Copenhagen
Former UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP executive director Achim Steiner has emphasized the need for a natural and man-made systems-wide approach. He has been promoting the widespread development, promotion, and adoption of sustainable agricultural practices that address food, energy, job security, poverty, and biodiversity preservation.
Steiner has also been urging government leaders and representatives to incorporate policies and measures that do so into any global climate change agreement that succeeds the Kyoto Protocol. Doing so is critical, particularly given the urgency of reaching an international climate accord in Copenhagen this December, a development that proponents have been working hard to bring about.
“Addressing the range of current and future challenges – from the food, fuel, and economic crises to the climate change and natural resource scarcity ones – requires an accelerated transition to a low carbon, resource efficient Green Economy for the 21st century,” Steiner stated.
“Nations must seal the deal on a comprehensive and scientifically credible new climate agreement in Copenhagen – there is a lot at stake, not least the future of agriculture and farmers’ livelihoods. One key step will be for nations to agree to a scheme for Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD), which will pave the way for preserving forests and other key ecosystems, as well as closing the gap in global demand for sustainable timber by shifting production from forest to farm.
“Farming will be either part of the problem or a big part of the solution. The choice is straightforward: continuing to mine and degrade productive land and the planet’s multi-trillion dollar ecosystems or widely adopting creative and climate-friendly management systems of which agroforestry is fast emerging as a key shining example.”
